Epic of Pandeia, Part I: Timewalker
by stewbeef44
Summary: What happens when you live too long? Do you grow to take the world for granted, doing anything simply to experience something new? Or maybe there is another path, something worse than a simple state of undeath... Part I of a planned 10-part series called "Epic of Pandeia". Focuses on Jo and Adam mostly, although all main characters play a significant role. Mortinez.
1. Portland Bound

It had been a long day. The case they were working on was quite odd, which made them perfect for the job. It started out with a man with unnaturally large glasses that had been staring at people with a creepy grin plastered on his face. He had originally been arrested for disturbing the peace, and let go after a few days. Then, he had shown up at Jo's door, saying something that would haunt Jo for the rest of her life: "Sean walks with time now." He shot himself with an old-looking gun, and vanished into thin air.

Lieutenant Reece walked up to Jo. "I can't figure it out. He has no records, no fingerprints in the database, and even Henry has had a hard time tracking him." Jo hadn't said anything to Henry or her boss about the disappearance.

"Until now!" Both Jo and her boss looked at Henry. "He was last seen in Portland, Oregon." Jo was shocked, although she didn't show it. She thought of seeing Henry's shrink, but she could tell he was hiding something as well. No one would act that stereotypically British normally, she knew he must be using it to cover up some secret.

"That's halfway across the country, it's out of our jurisdiction." Reece slumped her shoulders. "We'll never catch him."

"Unless _someone_ has a contact there..." Abe said as he walked in the precinct doors.

"Of course you do." Jo said amusedly. How many contacts had he and Henry built up with that antiques shop? Or was she right that there was something more to Henry than he was letting on? _"Oh, I'll get it out of him eventually..."_

"Jo?" Henry and the lieutenant were puzzled by Jo's sudden mischievous grin. Her face quickly went back to normal. "Well, let's go. Wouldn't want to keep your contact waiting." She strode hurriedly out of the building, with Henry trying to catch up.

* * *

**A/N: How will Henry fare in the Rose City? Stay tuned to find out! Reviews are appreciated.**


	2. Cause of Death

"Something on your mind, Detective?"

Jo had been twirling her fingers anxiously aboard the flight. They had just had a layover in Phoenix, and were heading to Portland. "Probably nothing, it's just..." She sighed. "Sean's birthday was today."

"I'm sorry." How could he possibly tell her that he was the assistant ME under Dr. Washington at the time? He had failed Sean, and her as well when he didn't mention anything about his doubts on the cause of death.

"I think there may have been more to the heart attack than I thought. Just before he died, he started getting strange calls from someone named Adam. I overheard some conversations, and the caller said only one phrase, over and over again: '_Kill Jo'_."

Henry was pale, a look of horror on his face. "EILN..."

"Henry, are you alright?"

"Jo, did Sean seem... distant, sometimes unable to recall events, like he wasn't himself?"

"Yeah... how did you know?"

"I've worked with a case like this before. Externally-induced lucid nightmares are... well, how to put it..."

"Don't sugarcoat it, Henry." Jo took a hold of her partner's hand. "I want to know what happened to my husband."

"It is, without a doubt, potentially the worst thing that can happen to a human being. It is a lucid dream, turned into a nightmare by another person guiding it along. The person who is causing the nightmare, by physical or verbal stimulation, can make the dreamer dream absolutely anything. Since the nightmare is lucid, that means the dreamer... feels whatever pain, whether psychological or physical, the nightmare involves."

Jo broke into angry sobs. It lasted the rest of the flight. When they landed and got out of the airport, she pleaded with Henry, "I need you to lecture me. Tell me about the most boring thing you can think of. I just don't want to think about Sean right now."

He leaned over and whispered in her ear about the punk-rock music scene in Portland, how it got started, and how he would take her out to a concert the next morning. This seemed to satisfy her. "Thanks," she said, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek as their taxi drove them to where they would be staying the night.


	3. Adam

As they closed the doors to the taxi, a familiar voice greeted them. "Hello again. Nice to see you two together... shame what happened to Sean, isn't it?"

Both Henry and Jo recognized the voice. It was Adam. The doors locked. "Henry, remember when I killed you by crashing the car into the East River?"

"No..." Jo stared back and forth from the back of Adam's head to Henry, whose eyes were glazed over in horror. Adam chuckled. "Henry, Henry... you haven't told her, have you? Well, allow me to explain by example." He drew a gun, and shot Henry.

"NO! Henry!" Jo tried to give Henry CPR, but in her heart she knew he had died right in front of her, most likely by the same person that killed Sean.

Adam spun the car over the bridge, and into the water. Jo continued to use CPR on Henry, even as she knew Henry was dying. Right before the water went up to her shoulders, she found an older-looking pistol being pointed at her head. Knowing there was nothing more she could do, she faced Adam and laughed. "Go ahead. Shoot me, you son of a bitch."

BANG.

Both bodies disappeared. Adam laughed, drew the pistol he used to kill Henry, and shot himself as well.


	4. The Old God That Never Was

_You're gone, Jo_.

Jo looked around. All she could see was a maddening, endless expanse of grey. "Where's Henry...?"

_Henry is somewhere, out and about. He is also in here: somewhere among the mass grave of the things that never are._

Jo went from confused and depressed to just plain pissed off. "Whoever you are, I will hunt you down and kill you where you stand. And then I'll go see Henry, and make him tell me exactly what happened in that car."

_You don't know, do you? You are part of all that is. You are now also a part of all that is not. You're like Henry now. You are immortal, Jo Martinez. Never forget that. When you die, your soul is mine, for I am the god that never was. I command everything that does not exist. When you dream, I am guiding you. When you wake wet with sweat from a nightmare, I have been punishing you._

The disembodied voice creeped her out. But wait, she was immortal? That creeped her out even more.

_I know your thoughts as well, Jo. Yes, you are immortal, and in this realm, I command you. Even as you exist in the mortal plane because you exist there permanently, you reside here as well. Immortality was never meant to be, and thus I, Old God of the Null-Void Space, command your soul._

As he said these final words, Jo was filled with a primal fear, a fight-or-flight response. It wasn't due to anything either: she was simply afraid for no reason at all. She started crying, to which the voice started laughing cruelly.

"Do you do this to Henry, too?" she snarled when she was done.

_I do! Would you like to hear him scream?_

Off in the distance somewhere, she could hear Henry. "Jo... I meant to tell you before... I'm sorry... AAAAUUUGHH!"

_I'm bored with playing with you two. I'll send your consciousnesses back to your precious mortal realm, however... you'll be here again and again. It will never end._

Henry and Jo vanished from the cruel clutches of the vast, empty greyness and into the arms of existence. They would not remember coming into non-existence, no immortal does when they die. But they would remember their deaths forever.

* * *

Jo broke free from the water. "I'm... alive. How can I be alive?" she muttered.

What happened in the taxi finally hit her like a brick wall. She screamed to the skies, to the space beyond, so loud and shrill that the gods themselves may have heard her rage and despair. No one answered but a familiar voice on the shore in the distance.

"I'm sorry, Jo..." sobbed Henry.


End file.
